Which is more important for business: Twitter or Facebook?

I am going to set up a business social media account, but I don't have time to focus on both right now. Is Facebook or Twitter more important when starting out? Is one more time-consuming than the other?

This is completely dependent on who you're trying to reach, what your content is and most importantly, your business.

I'd recommend that you first think about your target audience - who are you trying to reach and where do they spend the majority of their time? Then, when you decide which channel is right for your business, make sure your posts are directed at them specifically and it communicates your message consistently.

With some of the aggregation tools out there, you may be able to handle both channels easier than you think so make sure to look into them as well. While it definitely requires a time commitment, you can see fantastic benefits from engaging people on social media.

Another bit of insight, Facebook's algorithms can limit who does and doesn't see your posts without paying for a boost so take that into consideration as well. In either case, use hashtags and links well and where appropriate.

Without knowing something about your business it's difficult to advise you, but here are some general questions / suggestions:

1) What do you intend to post on social media? If you are promoting a product, Twitter might be better because it moves rapidly, and you can repeat or upload similar posts without sounding repetitive, since you will reach different people at different times of day. You can automate your Tweets so that material uploads at preset times, without your involvement. However, as social media turns on engagement, this somewhat defeats the purpose.

2) If you offer a service, Facebook or LinkedIn might be best, because you can go into more detail. On LI you can also join groups. And of course, on mosaicHUB you can post articles and videos that showcase your business.

3) Have you considered starting a blog? This will give you fresh, relevant content to share with your social media audiences. You can also create quizzes and offer giveaways to boost engagement.

Knowing who your target audience is and where they are active is critical to making this decision. I would start with determining the demographic, psychographic, and behavioral segmentation of your audience. 60% of the time I recommend Facebook as a good starting place for any brand. Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin and Pinterest round out my top 5 social networks that I use with clients based on ease of reaching an audience, tools available for promotion, and ability to easily monitor analytics. On Facebook especially, devoting a budget to your social activities is critical, or many people in your audience may not see it. It's hard to make a recommendation without knowing anything about your brand, but that's where I'd start.

I've been Digital Marketing, SEO, PPC, Social Media for over 11+ years now and I run a leading UK Digital Marketing agency called Odyssey New Media (odysseynewmedia.com)

It does sometimes depend on your audience. Of course if your business is B2B I would actually say checkout LinkedIn but also don't discount Facebook/Twitter - business owners and customers use these networks, you just have to position your services/products correctly too.

In response to your question, I don't know what your business does or sells but my personal preference for businesses if they had to choose would be Facebook and here are my main reasons:

1) Largest Social Network for Active Users - Facebook is the biggest social network by a big margin. According to Statista it was 1200m more active users than Twitter as of April 2016 - http://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/ . Therefore you are potentially hitting a bigger pool of people.

2) Rich Facebook Business Page Features - Facebook pages are more feature rich than Twitter. Facebook allows you to have 'about us' info, banners, logos, online conversations, receive messages, list services, sell products and more. Twitter is more established as a micro-blogging platform and doesn't have the wealth of rich features Facebook has, and probably never will - https://www.facebook.com/business/products/pages

3) Facebook Ads for Business - Facebook ads have been around for many years. Depending on what services or products you're providing, Facebook ads can really help get you more followers, increased brand visibility and clicks/conversions through on your website. They are also looking to enhance their ads more and more particularly in the eCommerce space - https://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide/?tab0=Mobile%20News%20Feed

I hope that helps you in your choice. By the way Facebook aren't paying me to promote them, although I should have a word about some commission from Mark Zuckerberg, I think he can afford a few million, haha ;)

If you need any advice or help with managing your Social Media please let me know. We've provided training and management to other clients and we love helping businesses grow through online and digital methods. You can contact me anytime on rstoubos (at) odysseynewmedia (dot) com or call me on +44 7940420201.

Depends on your target market and what you want to achieve. Tweets come up on Google search. If you want exposure, you need Twitter. Facebook is the biggest network. If you're B2C, you have to be there. There are free tools to help you schedule and with a good marketing plan, you should be able to manage both in less than 30 minutes a day (however you want to break that up).

Social Media in general is like joining an association or chamber of commerce - you get out of it what you put into it.

Strongly consider this though. Your business needs exposure across most social networks to some degree.

Your website needs new, regular, fresh content.. Do you blog? Try integrating your blog into your social media. There are many plugins available to push your blog content out through your social media channels.

Also, social media had their own integration tools! E.g. Twitter can push top your Facebook wall, Instagram to Twitter etc.. Use them to give your business wider coverage and save your valuable time.

These aren't always ideal ways to engage, but they do fulfill the needs of the small business person restricted in the amount of time they can dedicate to promotion.

This format will allow you to engage your target audience on the social media platform they use most, without abandoning the rest.

Both are having their own importance and you should not miss both. With Facebook, you can connect with a bunch of people gathered via Facebook groups whereas Twitter is a best way to connect with influencers of your industry.
In starting, both social media channels can be time consuming but with time, you can easily manage the time to share updates.

Here is what you can do with Facebook: http://www.fatbit.com/fab/create-preliminary-buyer-persona-facebook-insights-google-analytics/ and you can check further posts regarding overall social media marketing

I am not sure there is an answer for that. It depends too much on the business and the individual. For me Facebook is the more important and I have not had particularly good results with Twitter but it has been ok. YouTube is actually the one that for me is amazing but my business is very different from yours. I would suggest you try both and put the time into the one that works for you.

We found that it was best to set up both accounts as its more dependent on the social media "preference" of your current and potential new followers. Sort of like comparing Dunkin Doughnuts Coffee to Starbuck's Coffee Customers. At the end of the day the common thread is coffee, or your social message in this case.

Our firm found that by sharing our media posts on both streams some of our viewers are Facebook users while others are Twitter followers so we ensure that all have access to our information.

One great thing is that if you set your account up correctly, you can manage one directly with entering posts and connect the two accounts so that the main (i.e. Facebook automatically can feed your posts into Twitter) or vice versa. I personally prefer to manage our posts on Facebook but its nice to know that our Twitter followers automatically get those feeds as well.

I have found Twitter to be much more valuable for my business. I use Facebook to share news with friends and family and to keep in touch. On Twitter, I feel the audience is more receptive to start a conversation with someone they don't know. Maybe it is the 140 character limit that makes talking to a new brand seem like a less daunting task. I also like how Twitter shows you what topics are trending at the moment. This is a great way to join the conversation or use popular hashtags to get your tweets seen.

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